GUEST OPINIONS: Legislators to embark on 'Gateway Cities' tour

What’s it like in Holyoke? I’ll have a good answer in a few days.

Next week Massachusetts legislators will begin a tour of our state’s Gateway Cities with a visit to Holyoke, to be followed by visits to Fall River and to several other cities. While I have traveled to the far corners of our commonwealth, this will be my first trip to Holyoke.

Next week Massachusetts legislators will begin a tour of our state’s Gateway Cities with a visit to Holyoke, to be followed by visits to Fall River and to several other cities. While I have traveled to the far corners of our commonwealth, this will be my first trip to Holyoke.

Five years ago, I invited Massachusetts state representatives and senators to join the Massachusetts Gateway Cities Legislative Caucus to promote the renewal of older industrial Massachusetts cities outside Boston that were once economic hubs of the region. We are senators and representatives from Taunton, Worcester, Pittsfield, Fall River, Lowell, New Bedford and 20 other municipalities that face economic dynamics very different from those facing Boston.

These 26 cities once provided gateways to the middle class, but these communities haven’t adapted to changes to the Massachusetts economy well. Today, based on MassINC’s numbers, these communities have an average unemployment rate of 9.9 percent, approximately 50 percent more than the statewide average. Our public high schools graduate only 63 percent of their students, compared with a state average of 82 percent. Nearly half our constituents meet the definition of working poor, meaning they earn an income less than twice the poverty level. For the commonwealth as a whole, the number of working poor is half as much. At the same time, we are legislators that make up one third of the representatives and half the senators in the State House.

Over the last decade the Boston economy has increasingly out-paced the economy of the rest of urban Massachusetts. It has become increasingly clear that in many cases the problems public policy is trying to solve in Boston are different than those we are trying to solve in Lawrence or Holyoke.

For example, market rents in Boston are several times higher than in most Gateway Cities. Boston needs more affordable housing, housing where rents are kept low through government intervention. In Gateway Cities, however, there is less need for affordable housing and a greater need for new market housing. The focus in Gateway Cities needs to be on creating jobs in Gateway Cities and to improve public transportation to allow Gateway Cities residents to commute to good jobs.

Developing such flexible and responsive public policy requires taking the time to understand what problems are similar throughout the Commonwealth and what problems require targeted approaches. On Beacon Hill, too often policy is set to respond to conditions in Boston. Similarly, the commonwealth outside of Boston is sometimes divided by region: there is one policy for Western Massachusetts, another for Southeastern Massachusetts. This approach has ignored the common challenges faced by the state’s smaller urban communities. The Gateway Cities Legislative Caucus has begun focusing legislation to address our common needs.

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Massachusetts’ own Tip O’Neil famously said that all politics is local. He was right in many ways. But good policy requires knowing what your constituents have in common with people outside your district and how a common approach can be most effective.

I’m excited to see how Holyoke’s leadership has integrated its development plan with state level initiatives to revitalize its downtown and encourage private investment. I’m willing to bet that if it’s working in Holyoke, something similar is likely to work in New Bedford, Taunton or Fall River.

More importantly, I’m willing to bet that I won’t be the only Massachusetts legislator setting foot in a new Gateway City for the first time during this tour. My hope is that the more often legislators from around the Commonwealth see how much their urban constituents have in common, the more likely we will be to make our Commonwealth stronger. Working together, the Gateway Cities Legislative Caucus can move our cities forward - together.

State Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral, D-New Bedford, is the chairman of the Gateway Cities Legislative Caucus.